While buried under inches of snow here in Atlanta - which completely shut down all activities, work, school, driving...I had a chance to spend all sorts of money I didn't have on a familiar auction site. I won't mention the name, but the initials are E B a y.

I had been watching this for a few days, and when it came down to the last hour or so, I placed a bid. I purchase most items on there via "buy it now", but I really wanted this one, and there was no "buy it now" option. So, when the auction rolled around to the last few minutes - ( I have two buyer names) - I started bidding against myself. It worked!!! I won!!! Ha! In your face!!! I ran the price up to $147.49 plus $3.00 shipping. Hindsight being 20/20 however, there were no other bidders so I could have saved myself $137.50, the starting price was $9.99. Oh well!

This was the first prototype of I Dream of Jeannie's eh, Genie bottle. Universal made it for the show, but it turns out the mirror-like surface made Jeannie look fat. Sorta like a side-show fun house. They opted then for the one that is in nearly every episode. Too bad.

WOW, I ==LOVE== the hose page, page 18. Could you possibly scan the lower half and send it to me in high resolution so I could see it good and clear? Too bad you can't post it in large size here, but you could email it to me... :)

P.S.: I also saw these catalogs [a dozen or more of them] and debated bidding on them but ultimately decided not to. Good thing I didn't on this one, or you would really have paid thru the nose for it!! ;P

Great finds Rick, I love the Genie bottle! Sure would be great if we could order from Flickers. Did the booklet contain any prices? I bet you would love to be able to order some of that Hammer spray paint. Thanks for sharing.

No. No prices - except for a very few. It shows a price list for the Kingston vacs parts, and some for GE (genuine) bag packages. A package of GE Roll-Easy R1 bags (six to a package) were $1.00 per package. I've never heard of Flicker. They were out of Brooklyn NY.

Gonna have to get me some from the different brands and experiment. Never seen anything wrinkly at Canadian Hardware stores such as Can Tire, Home Hardware, Lowes, Rona, Home Depot, etc.
So, next time I'm stateside it's on the list.

I have found 'hammer' finish spray cans from Kryolan and Tremcco but the colours leave a lot to be desired, vintage-wise.Unless you want brown (which looks fine on an old Filter Queen except they never get scuffed patches. LOL), bronze, black or Charcoal. The silver is ok. But of course it's not true hammertone look or depth.
If they can make these colours you'd imagine vintage tones in blues, reds, lilac, greens would be a no brainer with all the Nostalgia Decorating going on these days. And for us 3,837 worldwide Collector Dorks.
Or at least offer an additive you could add to custom colours for airbrushing.

I did once try a blue and green transparent candy coat over silver hammered paint but sadly the paints were incompatible with disastrous results.
I know you've done experiments in this area, Rick.

So wrinkle appeals to me if I can get a decent texture that could be overpainted in the correct tone, like for Hoovers, Singers, GEs, and Compacts.

(I wonder if the white speckled effect on Tristars is a two part process or one coat? It looks to me like artfully applied toothbrush spattering but so evenly distributed as to be supernatural magic!

Not that any of this is essential - we take our vintage vacs as we find them and give 'em the best spa makeover we can and call them gently used with real world 'patina'...but wouldn't it be nice to have those old paint textures and colours readily available for those really sad cases?
Well, never give up.

I remember being told to HEAT the part(s) being painted with wrinkle finish before spraying them. And then after spraying them. They wrinkle a lot better. I did the base of a Hoover 28 that way once. It worked pretty well.

That's true. The "real" factory-done hammertone is done by baking the metal parts in an oven. The heat also tempers the paint, hardening it and bonding it to the metal. That's why you hardly ever see a scratched-up old Electrolux with the original hammertone finish. The ones that are "dunked and dried" by bojack shops, that's a different story. The paint on those machines starts flaking off even before you begin using the machine!